R

ay LaHood has caught Obama fever and it’s wracked him so badly that you’d never know our new Transportation Secretary is (was?) a Republican, or that he once understood, quite literally, what plays in Peoria, the congressional district he represented until the One gave  him the Nod.  Now suddenly a righteous evangelist for bikes over cars, he’s no longer interested in keeping government out of our lives; instead, he’s working to use government to, as he puts it, “change our behavior.”

I prefer a different spin:  He’s using government to force change on us.  As George Will lamented recently,

But LaHood is a Republican, for Pete’s sake, the party (before it lost its bearings) of “No, we can’t” and “Actually, we shouldn’t” and “Not so fast” and “Let’s think this through.” Now he is in full “Yes we can!” mode. Et tu, Ray?

Will sat down for lunch with LaHood a while back to ask him about his newfound love of transformational government, and LaHood was not about to cover up his newfound giddyness over having the power to rip people out of the cars they love and stick them on bicycles:

Indeed, about three bites into lunch, the T word lands with a thump: He says he has joined a “transformational” administration: “I think we can change people’s behavior.” Government “promoted driving” by building the Interstate Highway System—”you talk about changing behavior.” He says, “People are getting out of their cars, they are biking to work.” High-speed intercity rail, such as the proposed bullet train connecting Los Angeles and San Francisco, is “the wave of the future.”

Yes, my fellow Americans, one day you’ll take a train or your bike to the soccer game, riding the inherently inferior transportion of the future to the inherently boring game of the future. Sigh. I remember when the transportation of the future was the Jetson-mobile, larking its way through the clear, clean skies. Now the car of the future is the bicycle?! A mode of transportation that went out of style in 1910?

The DC press corps apparently read Will’s column, so when LaHood appeared a few days later at the National Press Club, they pounced, according to CNS:

At the National Press Club on Thursday he attempted to respond to George Will’s column and to explain his vision for using the power of government to change people’s transportation behavior and to change the nature of American residential communities.

“We want to really–and notwithstanding the fact that George Will doesn’t like this idea–the idea of creating opportunities for people to get out of their cars–and we’re working with the secretary of HUD, Shaun Donovan, on opportunities for housing, walking paths, biking paths,” said LaHood. “If somebody wants to ride their bike, if–to work or to the place of employment or to other places–mass transit, light rail–creating opportunities for what we call livable communities.”

The moderator of the press club event asked LaHood: “Some in the highway-supporters motorist groups have been concerned by your livability initiative. Is this an effort to make driving more torturous and to coerce people out of their cars?”

LaHood answered: “It is a way to coerce people out of their cars.

“Yeah,” he continued, “I mean, look, people don’t like spending an hour and a half getting to work. And people don’t like spending an hour going to the grocery store. And all of you who live around here know exactly what I’m talking about. You know, the dreaded thing is to have to run an errand on a weekend around here or to try and get home at 3:00 in the afternoon or even 5:00 in the afternoon.

Someone tell LaHood people don’t like having to ride a bike through rain, snow or dark of night to work.  Or having to go to the grocery store every day because the trunk on the ol’ Schwinn just isn’t all that big.  Or having to get shoved into a crowded subway, where the pervert du jour can rub up against you. Or having to pay $75 for a cab because the boss kept you late and you missed the last train. 

Someone tell LaHood that the minute streetcars, then cars, made it possible to get out of the idealized planners’ vision of a compact urban core, we did, fleeing by the millions to suburbs, where we continue to live because we don’t like crack dealers on the street corner, gangstas in our kids’ schools, and car alarms going off at 3 a.m.

One reporter asked LaHood to respond to conservative concerns that he’s just another fascist know-it-all loon he’s supporting government intrusion into our lives.  His response?

“About everything we do around here is government intrusion in people’s lives,” said LaHood. “So have at it.”

Meanwhile, GM bond-holders did not respond warmly to government mandated depreciation of their bonds, forcing the automaker to the brink of bankruptcy.  The GM that emerges could be as much as 70 percent government-owned.  And who, then, would become a pivotal decision-maker for GM’s future?  Roy LaHood, the man who lives to make cars less attractive than bikes and subways.

It’s a brave new world.  Full speed backwards! 

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D

ale at Okie on the Lam, besides doing the nifty accompanying artwork, has turned over a rock (with help from The Truth About Cars) that I’m mighty glad is now turned, so we can see all the creepy crawlies underneath:

In the upcoming “deal” that will keep General Motors afloat, at least for awhile longer, the federal government will “own” 50% of GM’s stock. I’m betting that it will be at least 51%, gotta have that undeniable control don’t ya know? Along with Cadillac, GMC, Buick and Chevrolet, the feds will be getting control of OnStar — that little ditty of a “communications” package that has been installed in most GM vehicles in the past decade. So what? Well, consider this:

“The Truth About Cars” wrote that “OnStar’s computer knows where you were, when you were there, and how fast you went. It knows if and when you applied the brakes, if and when the air bags deployed, and what speed you were going at the time. It knows if and when your car was serviced. OnStar operators can determine if you have a passenger in the front seat (airbag detection). … under certain conditions, OnStar can switch on your GM car’s microphone remotely and record any and all sounds within the vehicle (i.e. conversations).” …

Voice-monitoring capability is marketed as OnStar Hands-Free Calling. The use of this type of capability by law enforcement is subject to legal debate and some technical impediments. OnStar maintains that it is unable to “listen to, view, or record the content of calls”. However, a 2003 lawsuit revealed that systems such as OnStar can be used for eavesdropping on passenger conversations.

Also, it’s possible for them to deactivate your vehicle — What? You thought that they could only unlock the doors?

NSA wiretaps? We don’t need no stinkin’ NSA wiretaps.

Still, the same liberals who support the ACLU think it’s all merry and bright to have government up to its armpits in private business. Go figger.

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W

ell, the prez might go a little higher than ten cents, but he’s definitely relishing his new role as de facto CEO of two of the Big Three, and is all too happy to use his new bully pulpit to make his greenie-car agenda well known.  Is he worried that he’s running two big car companies even though he’s got no automotive experience? C’mon, he’s running the only  superpower with no experience, so what’s the big deal?

So here’s his squeal with Detroit:

“I’m not an auto engineer, I don’t know how to create [an] affordable, well-designed plug-in hybrid. But I know that if the Japanese can design [an] affordable, well-designed hybrid, then doggone it, the American people should be able to do the same. So my job is to ask the auto industry: Why is it you guys can’t do this?” (WSJ)

Actually, there is no affordable Japanese plug-in hybrid on the road.  But let’s overlook that.  Forgive and forget. Rookie error.

I’m sure the prez meant “hybrid,” not “plug-in hybrid.”  Or maybe he thinks “design” means the same thing as “sell.”  After all, he’s hot to sell alternative energy systems that are designed … but no one wants to buy because they’re utterly uncompetitive.

And maybe he doesn’t know Toyota Prius sales are down almost 50 percent this quarter, or that Toyota is actually offering discounts on its green flagship so it can clear the decks before the 2010 model comes out.  He might have missed that Honda barely sold 2,000 of its slick new Insight hybrids in its first month of U.S. sales, or that small car sales are down 33 percent in the US.

Never mind any of that.  He wants us in hybrids, he won the election, so he’s going to get us in dinky little hybrids that we’ll die in when that empty mass transit bus plows into us.  Oh, well, at least we’ll be one less carbon footprint to worry about.

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P

erhaps you’re not aware of the mission Obama has tasked to senior officials in his administration. No, it’s not to re-start the economy, or even to become the world’s best new friend.  No, the orders are simple:  Seek out free enterprise wherever it exists, and squash it.

If that’s not bothersome enough, the fact that evidence for existence of the mission can be found on NPR, National People’s Radio, is a bit eye-opening.  It’s in this interview of Obama EPA chief Lisa Jackson. Roll the tape:

Jackson: “The President has said-and I couldn’t agree more-that what this country needs is one single national road map that tells auto makers who are trying to become solvent again, what kind of car it is they need to be designing and building for the American people.”

NPR reporter (interrupting): “Is that the role of the government, though? I mean that doesn’t sound like free enterprise.”

Jackson: “Well…it is free enterprise in a way…you know, first and foremost the free enterprise system has us where we are right this second…and so some would argue that the government already has a much larger role than we might have when Henry Ford rolled the first cars off the assembly line.”

Jackson can’t find any way to call the fed’s takeover and ongoing control of the automobile sector “free enterprise,” so she simply decides to blame the free economy for the nation’s ills. No, no, it’s not government over-regulation to date, demanding ever more expensive pollution and safety technology that’s to blame, nor is it labor’s unwillingness to face new economic realities that’s behind Detroit’s trouble. It’s not government’s considerable efforts to push the economy into the credit deficit by demanding mortgages be given to people who charitably can be called uncreditworthy.

It’s just that #$%@! free enterprise system that’s to blame.

According to her EPA bio, Jackson has never held a job in the private sector. What a shock.

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I

ncredible Daughter #1 is, incredibly, even more of a car buff than her dad, so I can count on her to send me interesting car patter on a regular basis.  And today, with the Obamameter needle buried in the red, I thought you could use some relief, so I’m sharing a couple of her links with you.

It’s not all about Detroit

The photos shows Nissan’s corporate test track at its manufacturing plant in England, parked full of cars the Japanese car maker can’t find buyers for in jolly old.  Autoblog reports that the plant’s extra parking lots were already jam-full of new, unsold cars, so they opted to park the testing track full, too.

So beware of DC politicians asking the impossible of Detroit.  Yes, the auto makers should come back to DC with a good business plan in return for the money they got – but they’re up against a global downturn in the business, and anyone who just declares Detroit a one-off that can’t get its act together is ignoring a lot of great, green cars they’re making, and blaming them for problems that aren’t all of their making.

What Next? Cars Kill?

Another Autoblog post tells how researchers have linked increases in lightning strikes to auto exhaust:

Researchers at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem found that in the southeastern U.S. from 1998-2008, there was 25% more lightning during the work week than on the weekend.

This follows from research by NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center that found rainfall in that same area of the country rose during the week. The suspected culprit is automobile pollution, which is causing more storms during the week and increasing the severity of storms. That pollution, and the humid air in the southeast, makes for more clouds to rise and create more conditions for lightning strikes.

Just. What. We. Need.  Hybrid owners are already glaring at me and my gorgeous German V8, convinced that even Obama won’t be able to stop the oceans from rising if I continue selfishly tooling around in something that gets “only” 19 mpg.  I’m seriously afraid that they’ll start throwing red paint on my ride, like they do on fur coats.

And now they’ll look at me like I’m responsible for the 90 lightning strike deaths a year in the U.S.

Except for one little problem:  Auto emissions are down considerably since the 1970s and 1980s, as internal combustion engine efficiency and exhaust-scrubbing technology have vastly improved, so even though there are more cars now, the air was dirtier then.

What are we talking about here?  Climate science.  No wonder it jumps to questionable conclusions!

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Hot! Hot! Not!

I

t’s one of those cognitive dissonance moments: They tell you this October was the hottest October ever recorded – excuse the pandering Paris photo – and you’re asking yourself, “Yeah, but wasn’t I freezing my fanny off for most of the month?” Yes you were, and you should believe your fanny, not Warmie “scientists,” who live to feed bogus data into the global warming industrial machine.

Fortunately, they don’t get away with this malarkey like they used to. Here’s Christopher Booker from the UK Telegraph, with emphasis added by Okie:

A surreal scientific blunder last week raised a huge question mark about the temperature records that underpin the worldwide alarm over global warming. On Monday, Nasa’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS), which is run by Al Gore’s chief scientific ally, Dr James Hansen, and is one of four bodies responsible for monitoring global temperatures, announced that last month was the hottest October on record.

This was startling. Across the world there were reports of unseasonal snow and plummeting temperatures last month, from the American Great Plains to China, and from the Alps to New Zealand. China’s official news agency reported that Tibet had suffered its “worst snowstorm ever”. In the US, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration registered 63 local snowfall records and 115 lowest-ever temperatures for the month, and ranked it as only the 70th-warmest October in 114 years.

So what explained the anomaly? GISS’s computerised temperature maps seemed to show readings across a large part of Russia had been up to 10 degrees higher than normal. But when expert readers of the two leading warming-sceptic blogs, Watts Up With That and Climate Audit, began detailed analysis of the GISS data they made an astonishing discovery. The reason for the freak figures was that scores of temperature records from Russia and elsewhere were not based on October readings at all. Figures from the previous month had simply been carried over and repeated two months running.

As the Okie says,

Innocent error, or intentional manipulation of the data sets because the reality of the situation just doesn’t fit into the Anthropogenic Climate Change catechism? Shoot, I don’t know. But, the Global Warming proponents have been willing to use funny numbers before. At the very least it’s sloppy work that went unnoticed by GISS because the information was exactly what they wanted to see.

Yup. And there’s much, more more. Read the Okie’s post. Continue Reading »

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Sunday Scan items are published as each is completed; most recent at the top, so be sure to click through if you see the “continue reading” note at the bottom of the post. This note will be removed after the last item is posted, so if you’re reading this, please come back for more.

Palin Packs ‘Em In

H

ere’s the report from Shawn Steele (fomrer Cal. GOP chair) from last night’s Sarah Palin event in SoCal:

Not since Ronald Reagan’s final campaign rally at Orange County’s Mile Square Park on the eve of the 1984 election, have thousands of Californian Republicans gathered. Neither Bush could do it. None of last year’s Republican presidential candidates could fill the Home Depot Tennis Center.

The Center has 13,000 court side seats. All those seats plus the suites were filled to capacity. Still thousands more were slowly streaming into the stadium quickly filled up the court yard. Thousands more found standing room around the rim of the stadium. Over 20,000 people were there to celebrate, shout and scream.

SNL can continue to poke fun at Palin, but real people get her and want to get close to her. If you have any doubts what she’s done to the ticket, check out who introduced her:

Shelly Mandell, the current President of Los Angeles National Organization for Women [NOW] — in the Republican OC suite several of us were scratching our heads— introduced Sarah Palin. It was an awkward introduction. . Mandell, stated she didn’t agree with Sarah on everything, that she is a democrat, that she Mandell supported the failed Equal Rights Amendment campaign but the crowd exercised tolerance. Ms. Mandell will get a lot of angry calls from the hard left, but she embraced the moment and stood with Sarah Palin.

The OC Register also covered the event:

“Electrifying,” “genuine” and “inspiring” were a few of the adjectives that Orange County voters used to describe Sarah Palin after her rally at the Home Depot Center in Carson on Saturday.

The lead of the LA Times story was a bit different:

You can’t say she didn’t warn them.

Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin introduced herself to the nation with a now-famous joke about lipstick being the only difference between a certain dog breed and a hockey mom. On Saturday, the Republican vice presidential nominee unleashed her inner pit bull, accusing Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama of being someone who would “pal around with terrorists.”

The reporter let us know that in her opinion (yes, yes, it was a news story, I know) Palin’s new tone was “abrasive.” That’s a fine alternative for “truthful,” isn’t it? Continue Reading »

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